Lighting systems exists that comprise a plurality of light sources, e.g. luminaires, that are distributed across a certain space and that are controlled to achieve a desirable illumination level within such a space.
However, if such a space is occupied by a plurality of users, it may be difficult to achieve an illumination condition that is mutually agreeable to each of these users, as different users may have different personal preferences or maybe engaged in different tasks that require different optimal illumination conditions. This may be addressed by configuring the lighting system such that different regions of the space have different local lighting conditions in order to provide optimized illumination conditions in each of these different regions. Unfortunately, such approaches are seldom satisfactory as it is often impossible to generate truly localized illumination conditions with such a lighting system due to the fact that the light from different light sources cannot be locally contained; in other words, light from different light sources tends to spread over large areas within the space such that it becomes extremely difficult to create the desired localized illumination conditions.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,671,035 discloses a head-mountable device for selectively reducing the intensity of light in the field of view of an eye of its wearer. The device has a frame, a power source, a light sensor, two light transmissive lenses having an array of shutter elements, user controls and processing circuitry. The user controls are utilized to set user constants to customise the apparatus and may be used to select a mode of operation. During operation, the light sensor scans the field of view and produces light intensity signals. These light intensity signals are processed with the user constants and preset threshold values. If the light intensity signals exceed any of threshold values, then one or more elements of the shutter matrices of each lens is darkened. Such a device is however not ideally suited for adjusting lighting conditions to suit personal preferences in a space illuminated by a lighting system as simply controlling light intensity levels that pass through the device may not be sufficient to achieve the desired illumination characteristics. Moreover, this device cannot address any issues with lighting levels produced by a lighting system.